


Underneath the Same Sky

by Kc8899



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cancer, High School, I don't know what to put here, Multi, This isn't tumblr, What am I doing, and younger than Mikey, ashtons like 17
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kc8899/pseuds/Kc8899
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica (Jessy) has a rare form of leukemia, Ashton's mom is a doctor in the hospital that Jessy lives in, Michael goes to the hospital a lot for miscellaneous injuries, Luke has JRA, and Calum well he's just Calum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I'd just like to point out that in this book Luke has JRA and that I really down play the amount of pain he'd be in. A good friend if mine has JRA and last year alone she missed 5 months of school due to pain. She practically lived in the hospital. Every so often she'd come to school for a couple of hours, often when Luke is in focus on this book it's during those couple of hours that his pain is bearable. My friend takes about thirty pills every day. I don't mean to down play the severity of this but I want my character to be able to have a semi normal life. So I just ask you to please take JRA seriously. Thank you.
> 
>  
> 
> This is my first ever fanfiction so please don't hate :)

8/24/13  
Dear Journal,  
Hi! I'm Jessica, but everyone (my mom) calls me Jessy. You're my third journal already this year, yah I write a lot. I hope you don't mind that I'm going to write in you like you can reply to me because I've tried to stop doing that but it never works. I guess you could say that a lot goes on in my life, or the complete opposite too. They're both reasons why I write so much. I have a very rare form of leukemia. It's typically not too bad, but it won't go away, so I have to keep going through Chemotherapy. I lost all of my hair a while ago, so I'm used to being bald now, but I still wear hats all the time. I've recently been moved to another new hospital but this time my mom couldn't move with me. Normally she would just pick up her life and rent a cheap apartment near the hospital I was living in at the time. She couldn't come because she had finally gotten out and met someone while I was at the hospital. During my four year stay she had not only gotten married but had two other children as well. There's no way I could force my mom to move around with me now. Plus I'm only a ten hour drive away, I'm sure she'll come visit me all the time. I'll be seventeen in two months anyway I shouldn't need my mommy around at all times anymore, I'll be fine. Well I guess that's it for now, goodbye journal.  
Love,   
Jessy

Jessica (Jessy) Anne McLaren. That's her name, that's what it said atop all the forms and records in the various hospitals across the country that she's stayed in for varying periods of time. Jessy has been living in hospitals practically her whole life. She was diagnosed with leukemia at age seven, almost ten years ago, and even though she'll probably live at least another five years, she's constantly sick. Her body is too busy trying to fight off the cancer; it doesn't realize that other germs have gotten in and are making her sick.

She could probably live at home, but they would need a nurse there, and she couldn't leave the house very often or even go to school. So there's really not a point, it just makes more sense for her to stay at the hospital. The last hospital she lived in didn't have many people her age; it was more for adults, so her only friends were the nurses and doctors she saw daily. Lucky for her this hospital was made just foe people eighteen and under, so even though she was on the older end of things, there was a lot more people around her age.

She didn't have a roommate, and for that, she was thankful. Jessy wasn't the type of person you'd want to share a room with. She was messy (her mom used to call her messy Jessy), she stays up until all hours of the night and then sleeps just about all day, she gets extremely grumpy if woken up, etc.

Right after Jessy put away her new journal there was a knock on the door. She mumbled a barely audible "come in" that she hopes whoever was outside her room had heard. Apparently they did because the door opened and someone walked in. Right away Jessy realized that it was her new doctor, Dr. Clare Chamberlin. She asked Jessy to call her Clare but Jessy thought it was strange to start calling your doctor her first name after only knowing her for a couple days.

"Hi Jessy, how are you feeling today?" Dr. Chamberlin asks.

"Fine," Jessy replies. Even though she's only been at the hospital for a total of five days they had already worked out a code. Good meant that she was feeling better than usual, fine meant the same as usual, okay meant a little worse that usual, and if she said bad you knew something's was seriously wrong.

"That's good, how are you settling? Do you like it here?" Dr. Chamberlin questions.

"I've settled fine. There's really not much different here, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess most hospitals look and feel the same. I have a meeting to go to, but a nurse will be here in a few minutes to check some things over. After that you're free to go look around, maybe make some friends." Dr. Chamberlin says as she walks out.

Friends, that's one thing Jessy doesn't have. It's not like she hasn't tried to make friends because she has and she's had friends in the past. She just no longer sees the point of having friends. When you both live in the hospital due to a terminal illness, you never know when one of you will leave the other. Sometimes you're just transferred to a different wing or floor of the same hospital and you can stay friends for a while longer, sometimes you're transferred to a different hospital and you try the long distance friendship thing but it never works out, and the worst sometimes of them all one of the two friends doesn't beat the illness and you have to watch your friend die. Jessy has had that happen to her twice already and she can't bare to watch another friend die so she just doesn't have them.

The nurse came in a few minutes later and checked Jessy over, asking a lot of questions all the while. Jessy isn't a big fan of questions, never has been, never will be. She thinks that it's probably because she's always asked the same questions and gets bored of them. The doctors and nurses always ask how she's feeling, if she needs anything, if she's in any pain, and she gets sick of it. She always feels like crap, if she needed anything she could get it herself, and yes she's probably in pain. She understands that it's their job to ask these questions but they could at least try to mix it up a little.

The only thing worse than the questions that doctors ask are the ones that normal, every day people ask. They ask the stupidest questions like, "What is it like to have cancer?" or "How long are you going to live?" Really you're going to ask a teenage girl how long she thinks she's going to live? Not a good idea, but in Jessy opinion the worst questions are the ones said with pity. Pity is the last thing she wants from anyone, people and medical staff alike. Being pitted makes her feel small and helpless, it makes her want to give up hope in beating this disease. So yeah, she doesn't like questions.

Jessy had been so deep in thought she didn't notice that the nurse had finished and left. She was brought out of her mind by the sound of her stomach growling. Deciding that she should probably get something to eat, Jessy got out of bed and walked over to her little closet to put on a beanie before she leaves for the cafeteria type place. After getting a turkey sandwich and a bottle of water Jessy found an empty table where she could eat alone. Just as she was taking her first bite a loud boy with bright blue hair came and say down at her table.

"Hi, my name's Kyle, are you new here because I haven't seen you around before?" he asks sticking his hand out for Jessy to shake.

"I'm Jessy and yeah, I just got here a couple of days ago." she replies.

"Ah that's cool, so I'm guessing you have cancer judging by your lack of hair? I'm here a lot for miscellaneous injuries." He says, his voice getting smaller as he speaks.

"Yah I do have cancer, no big deal. Why are you here so often?" Jessy muses ignoring the slightly rude comment about her hair.

"Ha... nothing big, I'm just really clumsily is all," he replies, clearly nervous.

Jessy decides to drop the topic so she doesn't ruin her first chance at having a friend in years. They sit and talk for what seems like hours but was only 45 minutes before a nurse came to bring Kyle back to his room. They had talked about a lot in that short 45 minutes, Jessy learned that Kyle had two best friends named Elijah and Christian and that they were always hanging out together playing video games and such. Talking to Kyle made Jessy realize how much she wanted a friend and she hoped she'll find one in Kyle.


	2. Chapter Two

8/22/13  
Dear Notebook,  
Hi, it's me Ashton again, who else would even write in you? I'm the only one who even knows you exist my dear notebook so the answer to that question in no one, no one but me would be writing in you. I'm going to talk about my day now I hope you don't mind. So, Michael had to go to the hospital again yesterday. I don't know what's going on or why he has to keep going back but I hope he's okay. I could just ask my mom but I don't want to brake his trust like that and I doubt my mom would tell me anyway. School sucked today, even though no one really bullies Calum, Michael, and I but no one talks to us either. I don't know why but they always just brush past us in the halls and it's getting really annoying. But back to the topic of school sucking today, there was a pop quiz in just about every class. I swear the teachers all plan to torture us by giving us a ton of quizzes on the same day. I think I failed at least half of them which isn't good because with my mom being a doctor everyone expects me to be really smart even though I'm not. I went over to Calum's house after school though, that was fun. We played COD for a couple hours before I had to go home for dinner. The only good thing about having so many quizzes is less homework because I had just about none tonight so I got plenty of time to wasteland the Internet, i.e. tumblr. Tomorrow's friday and that means the weekend is almost here and then no more school (for two days)! Wow I've been writing for a long time because now it's almost midnight, I should really go to sleep.   
Goodnight notebook,  
Ashton

After setting his notebook down on his bedside table Ashton took off his thick black glasses and rolled over to go to sleep. He instantly fell into a dream filled sleep.

\-----

"Ashton wake up, you've got to get ready for school," Ashton heard his dad say through his bedroom door.

Ashton grumbled a bit about hiving his dream interrupted before replying "I'm up dad," as he was rolling out of bed. Ashton stumbled around his room trying to get dressed for a few minutes before giving up and putting on his glasses; he was as blind as a shovel without them. He got dressed in a blue Marvel t-shirt with chibi versions of the superheroes on it, black skinny jeans, and grey vans; a typical outfit for him. While getting dressed he noticed the time on the clock, 7:30, he was late. Running across the hall to his bathroom he quickly brushed his teeth and shook out his somewhere in between light brown and sandy blond hair. He literally fell down the stairs on his way to the kitchen to make some quick toast he could try to eat while walking, or running, to school.

Lucky for Ashton, he made it into his class right before the bell rang, one more tardy and he'll get a detention. Ashton is often late for school due to over sleeping so no one would really be surprised if he did get another detention but if he gets in trouble five more times before Christmas vacation he'll get suspended and his mom said that if he gets suspended again then he'll have to go to work with her at the hospital.

After sitting through a very boring English class Ashton walked to his locker hoping that Calum would be there waiting for him to cure him of his boredom. Calum wasn't waiting for him but showed up just a few seconds after Ashton got to his locker.

"Hey, where were you this morning?" Calum asks.

"I over slept again," Ashton replies, "I was almost late for class."

"Dude you really need to get an alarm or something, your dad is not a reliable alarm clock."

"Yah I guess, I could use my phone if I could figure out how the stupid thing works."

"Is it still stuck in, what language was it? German or something?"

"Dutch and yes, I don't know how to make it go back to English!" complained Ashton.

"That really sucks, what's the point of having a phone if you can't even use it?"

"I don't know, well I gotta go or I'll be late. Bye, see ya at lunch." Ashton says, turning to go to his next class, chemistry.

"Bye, see ya later." He here's Calum shout down the hall.

Ashton's next two classes before lunch were really easy and boring. He had chemistry and algebra 2h in that order and no being in honors algebra meant nothing because the majority of his grade took that class. Ashton is now sitting in math and it's two minuets before the bell rings signaling lunch. Everyone's itching to start packing up their things but his teacher has a rule that no one can pack up until the bell has rung. Finally a loud RING is heard through the school and everyone rushes to the cafeteria. Ashton's class was pretty far away from the caff so he has Calum save him a seat every day. Walking into the cafeteria Ashton notices two things, one that Michael is back and two there's a new kid at their table.

"Hey Calum. Feelin' better Michael? Who's the new kid?" he asks.

"Sup," Calum replies.

"Yes much better and this is Luke he's new in town, I met him at the hospital yesterday." Michael says oblivious to Luke trying to make him stop talking.

"Hi Luke, I'm Ashton. Why were you at the hospital yesterday?" Ashton asks.

"Well you see... I have this thing... called Junior Rheumatoid Arthritis or JRA for short, the easiest way to explain it is arthritis of the muscles and sometimes it's worse than other and I have to spend extended periods of time living in the hospital but I try to have as normal of a life I can while taking somewhere around fifty pills a day." Luke says all in one breath.

"Wow, that sounds tough." Calum replies somehow understand everything that Luke said.

"It's not to bad, you get used to it really but I've been getting worse recently so my family moved here so I could get treated at the teen hospital in town." He replies gloomily.

"A lot of families that have kids with illnesses and diseases move here for that same reason," Ashton says.

"Yah he should know his mom's a doctor at the hospital." Michael adds.

"Really? What's her name? Maybe I know her," Luke says suddenly excited.

"I call her mom but you'd probably know her as Dr. Irwin or maybe even just Anne."

"She doesn't like to be called doctor, mrs, ma'am, or anything like that really." Michael says.

"Yah she's weird like that," Ashton adds. Suddenly the bell rings signaling the end of lunch. "Wow, lunch went fast today. What's your next class Luke I'll help you find it."

"Umm... I have..." He mumbles pulling his schedule out of his pocket, "I have music history next."

"Sweet! We all have that too, there's only one class of that elective so we take it to make sure we'll always have at least one class together and learning about music is pretty cool even if it's the history of it." Calum says.

The four boys all walk to their class together, arriving just before the bell rings like usual. They quickly sit down and wait for Mr. Cos to start his lesson.

"Hello class, it looks like we have a new student today. Luke Hemmings please come to the front of the room." All eyes turn to Luke as he slowly stands up and walks to the front of the class. "Please say your preferred first name a nickname if you will, age, favorite band, and favorite song not by that band for the class." Mr. Cos says.

"Hi, my names Luke, I'm 17, my favorite band is All Time Low, and my favorite song not by ATL is Beside You by 5SoS." Luke says before going back to his seat.

Nothing exciting really happens after that, just the usual lecturing and note taking for the rest of the day. After two more classes of torture like boringness the final bell rings and all four boys decide to go to Ashton's house to hang out because it's the closest. They all pile into Michael's car, he's the only one old enough drive yet, and take the short ride to Ashton's house. Upon arriving they realize that the house has no good food so they pile back into the car so they can go get some from the gas station down the street. After their little adventure they all settle on to Ashton's couch with their newly bought snacks and some xbox controllers to play CoD.

Ashton's dad came home three hours later, around six, demanding that all the kids must go home so that his family, which is just Ashton and himself at the moment, can eat dinner. The three boys hurriedly left the house, terrified of Mr. Irwin. Everyone's afraid of Mr. Irwin. Ashton angrily stands and turns to his dad.

"Dad, why do you always do that?" Ashton complains.

"Do what, my son?" He asks in reply.

"Scare my friends away! You do this every time I have anyone over!" Ashton yells. "I'll be in my room if you need me." Ashton yells, turning and storming up the stairs. "Don't need me!" He screams as he slams the door to his room. He went there to try and cool off but that's probably going to take awhile. His dad always does this to him. 'How am I supposed to keep any friends if he's always yelling at them and scarring them away?' Ashton thinks to himself.

After a long hour and a half spent in his room alone Ashton was finally hungry enough to venture to the kitchen and maybe face his dad. He quietly opened his door and creeped down the stairs trying to keep his dad oblivious to his presence. Getting down the stairs was a challenge in itself, having to avoid just about every step, due to the loud squeak they make when stepped on, and almost falling flat on his face. His quiet trip to the kitchen proved pointless when some Tupperware full of god knows what fell out of the fridge while Ashton was opening it. His dad appeared in the doorway just a moment later.

"Hey bud, I'm sorry I yelled at your friends." he says sincerely while ruffling Ashton's hair.

"It's fine dad. Did you make anything for dinner?" Ashton asks, turning to give his dad a hug. They may fight a lot but they do love each other.

"Yah, I made some spaghetti," he says reaching into the fridge. "Here are some leftovers you can hear up." He handed the container to his son. "I'm going to go call your mother."

"Ok thanks dad tell her I say hi." Ashton says to his father. After that awkward conversation with his father Ashton heats up his dinner and goes to the living room to eat it while watching tv.


	3. Chapter Three

8/23/13  
Dear Journal,  
Hi, it's me Jessy again. Today was really boring. Michael was released from the hospital last night so I had no one to hang out with. I spent most of the day rereading the Percy Jackson series. I'm now on the fourth book, The Battle of the Labyrinth, this is my seventh time reading the Percy Jackson series I just love it so much. I also spent some time searching the Internet for a cheep tablet I can buy, my laptop really sucks. The food here is better than I expected that it would be but it's still not very good, nothing like a home cooked meal. Dr. Irwin asked me a lot of questions about my family today. Just the typical ones like; do you have any siblings, what's the relationship between your parents, have your parents ever hurt you. Yah so I got to answer more 'fun' questions. I'm hoping that I can make another friend tomorrow because it'll get lonely without anyone to talk to. I explored a bit more today while looking for so,wine who I could stand to be friends with. I found quite a few things like the young children's ward and even a gym. I guess it makes sense that they'd have a gym here they want us to be healthy. Wow it's already midnight, I'm going to bed now. Goodnight.  
Love,  
Jessy

After she finished writing Jessy closed her journal and put it on her bedside table. She then rolled over and tried to sleep. She couldn't fall asleep though she had to much on her mind. She wasn't thinking about anything in peculiar, just thinking. After what she assumes to be an hour she finally falls into a restless sleep. She didn't dream that night, she just saw the typical blackness of sleep.

Jessy woke up to someone coming into her room, sound of the door being loud enough to make her stir from sleep. She curses being a light sleeper under her breath before trying to look like shed been awake the whole time. It doesn't work to well, at all really, Dr. Irwin can see the sleep in Jessy's eyes.

"Good morning Jessy, sorry for wakening you. I'm just going to check some things to see if you're ready to restart Chemotherapy today." Dr. Irwin says walking over to the side of Jessy's bed. "Feel free to go back to sleep."

Jessy yawns, "what time is it?"

"Half past 6"

"Ok thanks, I'll be going back to sleep now." Jessy says yawning again. Dr. Irwin was only in the room for a few more minuets before she left, turning the light off on her way out.

Jessy fell back asleep the moment the light was turned off, she was still that tired. She dreamed of living a long fulfilled life where she had found love and gotten married, had some kids and written a book. She dreamed about stuff like this a lot and heard that is wasn't to uncommon among people with deadly diseases. Jessy's dream suddenly turned into a nightmare where everything was falling apart.

It was dark the only light to be seen was a spotlight shining on a dead body. "My baby!" Jessy yelled running over to the child trying to heal him somehow. "Come on, come on. You're alright, you're fine. Stop playing tricks on mommy and wake up now." She kept repeating herself, trying to bring her now dead son back to life with her words. The mysterious light shining in the two suddenly went out and it was pitch black. "Hello? Is anyone out there?" Jessy called. She received no response but she could hear foot steps in the distance. "Hello?" She tries again, "I know you're there. Please say something." She finally gets some sort of response in the form of her name.

"Jessy..." Cried the distant voice. The voice sounded familiar but Jessy couldn't place it. "Jessy..." It cried again sounding in pain. "JESSY!" It yelled this time. The voice sounded like it was screaming for its life. The scream broke Jessy out of her trance like state, she instantly started sprinting towards the voice.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." She yelled out to the voice. "I'm coming it's okay, I'll save you." She kept running even though it didn't feel like she was getting any closer.

"Jessy..." The voice sounded farther away this time, that only making Jessy run faster. The flat surface she was running on turned into a hill and she fell, tumbling down it. "Jessy..." By now Jessy had gotten back up and started crying.

"I'm here, what do you want?" She yelled, "what do you want from me?" She dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her face. "Why are you calling my name? What do you want?" She called out again. Suddenly she felt like she was being shaken.

Jessy woke with a start, tears poring down her face, and people surrounding her. She grabbed the nearest one, who happened to be Dr. Irwin, and sobbed into her chest. All Dr. Irwin could do was rub her back and whisper soothing words to try and calm her down.

"Shh, it's okay. You're all right, it was just a dream," she doesn't know if it's working but she continues anyway. "It's only a dream Jessy, you're okay, you're fine." Dr. Irwin's shirt was already soaked and Jessy had only woken up a few minuets ago.

Jessy doesn't know why that dream scared her so much but she can't stop sobbing. "I-i-it w-wa-s-s-s t-t-te-terr-i-i-ble." Jessy tries to say.

"Shh, don't talk child. You can tell me once you've calmed down." Dr. Irwin was still holding Jessy and rubbing her back. They were alone now, the staff that had wondered in to help must have realized that Jessy didn't need or want to be surrounded with people right now. It took quite a while for Jessy to calm down but when she finally had she told Dr. Irwin all about her dream.

"It started like a lot of my dreams, an older me and 'my family' doing every day things." She said, putting air quotes around the my family part. "The people in my family are different every time but it's always me, a husband, and a few kids. This time I had a little boy and a little girl, they were so beautiful and looked so much like their father. Their father, he was even more beautiful than both of the children, he had sparkling hazel eyes, thick black glasses, and wavy hair that was a mix between light brown and sandy blond. I wish he was real."

Dr. Irwin decides to ignore the fact that Jessy just described her son perfectly even though sees never seen him. That was just a little to weird for her. It probably means something, that Jessy was dreaming about her son but Dr. Irwin isn't a psychiatrist so she doesn't think into it to much.

"But then out of nowhere everything changed, it was dark, extremely dark. The only light I could see was like a spot light on a dead body. I ran over to the body and it turned out it was my little boy." Jessy is now shaking, trying not to cry again. "I know he's not real but it feels like he was, it feels like I've seen my son lying dead on the ground." Her attempts not to cry were futile because she was full on sobbing again. Jessy really wanted to finish telling about her dream so she could get it off her chest but she couldn't get the words out through her sobs.

"Its okay child, calm down before you finish." Dr. Irwin said sensing that Jessy was trying to say more.

It took another 30 minuets but Jessy was finally calm enough to talk again. "After, after I realized the little boy was my son I tried to save him. I tried so hard but he was already dead. He wasn't coming back, that poor little boy. He vanished out of my arms not long later and the light above us went out. It was so dark, I could feel the darkness in the air around me. Then I heard a voice calling out to me," Jessy spoke, keeping herself calm this time.

"That voice was probably me trying to wake you up." Dr. Irwin interrupts Jessy.

"I couldn't see anything but it sounded like it was in pain to I had to help. The more I ran the further away the voice got and I just couldn't get to it. Eventually I tripped and fell, causing myself to finally brake down and sob. The voice kept calling out to me and I tried to get it to say something other than my name, to even do something. At one point it screamed so loud, I could have sworn it was being murdered. Then you woke me up." Jessy felt a little bait better after getting all that out. She was glad that she now had someone that she could tell her dreams to so maybe they wouldn't eat her up so much anymore.

"That sounds like a really traumatic dream Jessy. Do you think that anything could have triggered it?" Dr. Irwin asks.

"No, I have no idea what could have triggered it but I have dreams like this it happens a lot. This one was the worst though." Jessy sits up a bit and sniffles. "Do you have a tissue?"

Dr. Irwin reaches into her white doctor coat pocket and pulls out a packet of tissues and hands them to Jessy. "Here you go. So you're saying that you've had dreams like this? Did those ones start out with you having a family and then turn bad as well?"

"Thanks, Dr. Irwin." Jessy says before blowing her nose.

"Call me Anne dear." Dr. Irwin interrupts.

"Ok, thanks Anne." Jessy corrects herself. "But Yah, I have the dream with my family a lot but most of the time it has a happy ending, or well and abrupt ending because I was woken up but not a nightmare or anything. When I do have nightmares they typically start out like my normal dreams, like this one did. Can we please talk about something else now," Jessy pleads, "please."

"Sure, actually there's something I wanted to talk to you about." Anne starts. "There's a new patient there that's your age. He doesn't live here like you do but he'll come in for regular visits and sometimes spend the night. He'll be here at noon, I wanted to introduce you to him, I feel like you could be good friends."

"Oh, okay." Jessy says, instantly feeling better now that the topic was of conversation is no longer her dream. "I'd love to meet him, what's his name?" She asks.

"Luke, Luke Hemmings I believe. He's a nice boy I'm sure the two of you will get along just fine." Anne says. "Will you be okay here by yourself while I go finish some work before he gets here in..." She pauses to look at her watch, "two hours?" She asks.

"Yes, I'm sure I'll be fine. You go do your work." Jessy replies already reaching for the book on her bedside table. With that Anne got up and left to finish her work leaving Jessy to read to her hearts content.

Jessy finished her book in forty-five minuets so she had to get up and go get the fifth one from her closet. By the time Anne, Dr. Irwin, got back she was half way done with the book. Jessy was curled up in her bed wearing her one piece reading. She looked up when she heard the door open. Anne had peaked her head in to see if she could bring Luke in to meet Jessy. "Come on in" Jessy said.

After hearing that Anne walked in with Luke all three of them going to the couch on the far side of the room. The couch is there in place of a second bed, Jessy didn't have a room mate so she didn't need two beds.

"Hi, I'm Jessy." She said holding out her hand for Luke to shake.

"Luke, nice to meet you." He replies griping Jessy's hand.

"Ok, well it looks like you don't need me here, I'm going to go finish my work." Anne says getting up and walking out.

"This is awkward." Jessy says to try and fill the silence.

"Yah, what kind of doctor forces two of her patients to meet and then leaves right after introducing them?" Luke muses.

"Our doctor, that's what kind of doctor." Jessica replies. "The day I met her she decided that I need to call her by her first name already."

"That's crazy! You barely knew her!" Luke exclaims. "I need to tell Ashton that his moms crazy."

"Who's Ashton?" Jessy questioned.

"He's a friend I made at school yesterday who apparently is Dr. Irwin's son."

"Oh, I don't go to school. I get homeschooled here at the hospital but it's not the same." She says wistfully. "The only friend I have is Michael and he was just here for a day."

"I know Michael! I met him a couple days ago when I was here to meet Dr. Irwin! He's the one that introduced me to Ashton and Calum."

"Oh, so they're the same Ashton and Calum that I heard about when Michael was here"

Luke and Jessy continued to talk for hours. They talked about everything and nothing. They really were going to be good friends. Luke understood the pain of always moving from hospital to hospital, afraid to make friends because you don't know when you'll leave them or when they'll leave you. Jessy wish more people understood so she doesn't always have to explain why she'd rather curl up with a book or a pen and paper then go looking for friends.

It's four o'clock when Luke leaves and only then does Jessy realize that she missed lunch and she's starving. She decided that it's fine to have an early dinner, she can just have a snack later if she needs to. She goes to the cafeteria to get something she can eat back in her room. After looking at all the choices she settles on chicken salad and jello, hospitals have the best jello. She grabs a water as well before going ofer to the register. They have a meal plan system here, it's kind of like a school lunch system. Parents put money in to accounts so their children can buy themselves food. The parents are always notified when their child's account is running low so they can put more money in. The hospital would never force anyone to go without a meal, they'd just get a PB&J sandwich and a water.

After getting food Jessy walks back to her room so she can eat in peace. She eats quickly so she can work on the book she's writing. She hasn't actually started writing it yet though, it's still in the planing process but she hopes to start in within the next week.


	4. Chapter Four

8/24/13  
Dear Notebook,  
Hi notebook how are you today? Good, good, fine fine. Nice to hear. Why do I keep acting like you can respond to me? Your. Notebook for Pete's sake. Today was a good day for me, a really good day actually. I woke up on time so I wasn't even close to being late to school and I even had time to talk to Michael, Calum, and Luke before class. It turns out that Luke is in both my English and math class as well as music history, so that's cool. He had to go home at lunch though because he has a meeting with his doctor aka my mom today. I wonder if he'll wanna still be my friend after he figures out how weird my mom is... Oh well doesn't matter. So even though I got loaded with homework I'm not worried about it because it's the weekend! Yah that's right no school for two whole days! After school we all, minus Luke, went over to Michael's house to hang out. That was fun, I even got to eat dinner over there because my dad had some work thing and wasn't home to yell at me. He's really weird about dinner and how it should be a family event, for just family, and something about family. Yah like I said he's weird. When I got home from Michael's house my dad wasn't home yet... Actually I'm not sure if he's even home at all. One second let me check. Nope he's not home yet, that's strange well not really he didn't tell me when he'd be home so I'm just not going to worry about it, I'm sure he's fine. Well I'm going to go screw around on tumblr now.  
Bye notebook,  
Ashton

After putting his notebook away Ashton went over to his laptop and opened up tumblr. He has quite a few notifications seeing as he hasn't been online all day. He goes through and replies to all his asks then aimlessly scrolls through his dashboard until he heard his dad come home. At this point it's one in the morning and he was supposed to be asleep an hour ago so he practically throws his laptop on the floor after shutting it down and curls up in bed to look like he's asleep. While he was trying to look asleep he actually fell asleep, typical Ashton for you.

\-----

Ashton woke up to the sun shinning in his face through the curtains and no it's not like every movie has you picture it with the birds chirping and the sun making you look like your glowing as you wake up with perfect hair and clothes. No it's more like the sun blinds you, as you try to get up you get tangled up in your blankets and fall on the floor, you wake up with your hair a mess and you pajamas rumpled. It's nothing like the movies.

Ashton can already tell that today isn't going to be as perfect as yesterday was. He gets up from where he fell on the floor and walks across the hall to his bathroom. Deciding that he needs a shower he turns it on to let in heat up while he strips himself of his pajamas. His shower is cut short by the water running cold, after he gets a ton of shampoo in his eyes. Yah today is not of to a good start, at all. After his terrible shower Ashton goes back to his room to get dressed and put his glasses on. Today he's wearing a nirvana t-shirt and blue skinny jeans.

He goes to get on his laptop when his stomach growls reminding him that he hasn't eaten breakfast yet so he goes downstairs to see if anyone has made some food. It seems like no one is either home or awake yet because he finds his kitchen spotless instead of the usual food and cooking things everywhere. He decides to just get a bowl of cereal instead of making everyone breakfast in case there really is no one home.

After Ashton finishes his cereal he rinses out the bowl and puts it into the dishwasher. Deciding that he should probably check if anyone's actually home, or if they left a note, or something like that. He goes up to his parents room to check there first because that's really the only place that they would be if they were home and not downstairs.

Running up the stairs Ashton thinks he remembers his mom telling him something the other day about his dad leaving for the weekend but he's not sure when that was supposed to be, so he still checks his parents room just to be sure. Upon finding the room empty he decides that he should call his mom to see if that weekend was this weekend. Ashton goes to his room to get his phone so he can call his mom. He goes into his contacts and find the one labeled 'A mom' he put the A in so that it would show up first. He clicks on the call button and holds the phone up to his ear listening to it ring. After quite a few rings it goes to voicemail which isn't all that weird because his moms a doctor, she can't always answer the phone.

He forces himself to believe that his dad is away for the weekend like he thinks his mom had said because if he doesn't he won't stop worrying about his parents and if they're even alive right now. Trying to convince himself that nothing's wrong Ashton walks down the hall to his room so he can go on twitter and see if anything cool is happening. He'll probably go on tumble as well, tumblr is always a good distraction. He just can't get past the weird feeling in his gut.

\-----

Ashton checks the time in the corner if his laptop, it's already one in the afternoon. Realizing that he's been on the computer for hours he thinks he should probably do something productive. When he can't think of anything productive to do he settles on inviting his friends over to his house. He gets his phone out of his pocket and sends off a couple texts to his friends.

To: Calum  
Hey dude do you wanna come over and hang out? -Ashton

To: Michael  
What's up? You doin anything right now? You should come over and hang -Ashton

To: Luke  
Hey man, you up to coming over to my place? -Ashton

In less than five minuets he revives three yeses, one from each if his friends, he thinks for a moment that is might be a bit sad that he only has three friends but quickly brushes that off. He tells them all to come over in five minuets so he can clean up his house a little bit. It turns out that five minuets is shorter than he thought because he gets no cleaning done in the time before his friends show up. He is just starting to pick up the garbage on his floor when the doorbell rings the first time. He runs down the stairs so he can get to the door quickly, he doesn't want to keep his friends waiting. He figures that is must be Luke because Michael would just walk in and Calum rings the doorbell after he's opened the door. Ashton opens the door and finds that he was correct.

"Hi Luke, please come in" he says moving out of the way so Luke can walk past him.

"Hello Ashton how are you today?" Luke asks politely.

"I'm good, how are you?" Ashton replies while walking to the kitchen gesturing for Luke to follow him. They sit down at the counter before continuing their conversation.

"I'm good, my pain was bad this morning so I had to take more pills than usual but I feel better now. Actually I feel almost numb I guess you could say, but it's fine I'm used to it."

"I keep forgetting that you have that JAR thing, what ever it's called. You're just so normal, like you don't act like you're ever in any pain or anything."

"JRA and yah, I've gotten really good at hiding it."

Ashton was going to reply but is cut off by the door opening, "Well it looks like Michael's here." He says to Luke. They get up from the counter and walk to the entryway to see that both Michael and Calum have arrived. "To my room!" Ashton yells pointing toward the stairs before running up them and to his bedroom. He jumps face first onto his bed only to feel three bodies land on top of him a few seconds later.

"Ow, guys get off me" Ashton says into his bed but it sounds more like "oh gyf groff mee."

Luke immediately gets off thinking that he's hurt Ashton while Michael and Calum know that Ashton could easily shove them off if he really wanted to. "What was that Ashton?" Michael asks with false innocence.

"I said get off me you jerk." Ashton says having the ability to sit up a bit now that there's one less person on top of him.

"I don't think we can do that buddy I'm sorry" Calum says using the same false innocence that Michael used before.

"Yah I'm pretty sure that we're going to have to stay right here for a while." Michael adds trying to make Ashton mad enough to move them himself.

"If you don't get off me right now I'm going to throw you across the room!" Ashton huffs starting to get frustrated. Calum gets off of him now because he really does not like the thought of being thrown across the room by a boy who hides his strength behind his puppy like face.

"Hmm, no I don't think that you'd actually throw me," Michael says trying to push Ashton to his limit. For some reason he really likes to make Ashton as mad at him that he can before he really has to stop.

Ashton knows what Michael is doing, he does this all the time and it doesn't really bug him all that much but he likes to act like it does so Michael can get some entertainment out if it too. Laughing Ashton flips over while somehow staying underneath Michael so that he could grab him and shove him on to the floor. "I decided that you didn't deserve being thrown across the room, just being pushed off my bed."

By now both Calum and Luke were laughing their heads off having witnessed Michael the supposedly 'tough' one of their group get thrown on to the floor by Ashton the 'adorably harmless' one of their group.

"Th-at was aw-esome!" Luke says through his laughter.

"Ok so now that we've settled that, what do you guys wanna do?" Ashton says sounding like nothing had happened.

"I think I'm going to stay down here and wallow in self pity for a while" Michael says sounding defeated. "I can't believe he actually shoved me off the bed" the other boys here him mumble to himself.

"Ok you do that we're going to play CoD" Calum says starting to hook up the xbox to Ashton's TV.

"We are? When did we decide in that?" Luke asks.

"Let's do something else, all we ever do it play xbox. Like we could just talk, or eat, or I don't know! What do normal people do?" Ashton asks

"I DON'T KNOW DO I LOOK LIKE A NORMAL PEOPLE TO YOU?" Michael exclaims over dramatically standing up from his spot on the floor.

"NO YOU DONT! YOU LOOK LIKE A WEIRD ASS PUNK KID WITH PINK HAIR!" Calum yells back.

"Um guys? It's not that big a deal, there's no need to fight." Luke says in a small worried voice.

Ashton gets up and walks over to Luke so he can rid him of confusion, "This is normal for them," he says. "There's just so much sexual tension between the two of them that they have to yell at each other to show their love."

"Really? Are they like, dating?" Luke asks sounding more and more defeated as he speaks.

"Hahaha, no but they probably should be." Ashton answers. "The only problem is that they're both to 'cool' to admit they have feelings for each other."

"Oh, so do you think we should try to get them together?"

"No, I don't believe in messing with other peoples relationships. If it's meant to happen it will, even if both people are COMPLETE IDIOTS WHO NEED TO STOP FIGHTING!" Ashton says, yelling the last bit so that Calum and Michael can hear them.

"I don't enjoy you talking about me in that way" Calum says crossing his arms and sitting on the floor crisscross style.

"Hey guys! I thought of something we can do!" Michael shouts. He receives a loud 'SHHhhhhhhh' from Calum.

"Well what is it?" Ashton asks.

"We can play truth or dare!"

"I don't think that's such a good idea" Luke says worriedly.

Luke's comment goes unnoticed by the other three boys because Ashton and Calum are yelling about how amazing of an idea playing truth or dare is. The three boys run around trying to find something that they can spin to see who asks whom while Luke sits on the floor, nervously. When they finally find something to spin, an old soda bottle (there were some jokes about playing spin the bottle), they all sit on the floor in a circle.

Ashton spins the bottle and it lands in Calum, "Truth or dare?" He asks.

"Dare! I'm the dare master!" Calum replies.

Ashton takes a second to think before he says his dare "I dare you to ding dong ditch the neighbors house."

"That's nothing! Let's go!" Calum says standing up from the floor and running down the stairs. The other three boys follow him, Luke albeit reluctantly. They all stood right outside Ashton's door. "ok which neighbor?" Calum asked Ashton.

"Straight across the street should be fine that way we can go back inside and watch through the window." Ashton says, starting back inside. Luke follows him immediately, Michael a little slower wanting to be close to the action but he follows when Calum tells him to.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Luke asks, nervous for Calum. "What if he gets caught?"

"He'll be fine. He won't get caught, he's smart." Michael says probably trying to reassure himself more than Luke.

They watch Calum as he walked across the street secret agent style, running and hiding behind things with his hands in the shape of a gun. He creeps up to the door rings the doorbell and hides behind the bushes in the front yard. The three boys safe inside Ashton's house watched the light turn on as someone walked up to the door. The door opens and someone looks out for a couple of seconds before slamming the door back shut and retreating only a few steps to turn the light off. They signaled to Calum for him to stay there, luckily he understood and stayed in his hiding spot. Finally the person in the house retreated back further into the house having given up on catching the ding dong ditcher. They signaled to Calum again and this time he came running back to Ashton's house. After Calum got back inside the four of them walked back up to Ashton's room and sat back into their circle.

"Okay, who's next?" Calum asks.

"You get to spin to find out." Michael replies.

Calum reaches for the bottle and spins it, he has to keep re spinning it because it keeps landing on himself. Finally the bottle lands on someone other than Calum and it's Luke. "Truth or dare?" Calum asks him.

"Uh... Truth I guess." Luke says in a small voice.

"I'll start with an easy one, do you have a crush on anyone if so who?" Calum asks.

"Um, yes... And I can't tell you." Luke says.

"C'mon Luke, you picked truth you have to answer it." Michael says.

"But I can't tell you."

"Why not?" Ashton asks.

"Because you'll judge me" he mumbles

"Aww no we won't" Calum says giving Luke a side hug.

"Please don't make me tell you," Luke says starting to get upset.

"Ok how about you just give us a clue to who she is instead" Ashton suggests. The other two boys agree that it's fine if Luke just a clue instead if the name.

"Um ok.... Well, he's a boy." Luke says in the smallest voice possible, tears slipping out of the corners of his eyes.

"Aw Luke, don't worry we still love you." Calum says leaning over to hug Luke. This starts a group hug and soon Luke is being crushed by Calum, Ashton, and Michael.

"Thanks guys. I know we only met earlier this week but you're the best friends I've ever had." Luke says rubbing his eyes and sniffling. "Not to be rude but can we end this group hug now, it's hard to breath." They all laugh at that but back off and give Luke some space.

"You never have to worry about if we'll accept you or not Luke, you're our friend and we'll always love you. Now wipe those tears, there's no need to cry." Ashton says.

Michael throws in a "yah, what he said." to prove Ashton's point. At this Luke gives a watery laugh.

"Well my coming out at my other school didn't end to well, that's part of the reason we moved. So you should understand why I'd be at least a little bit worried." Luke explains, sniffling again.

"Well I can assure you that even though I look like a scary punk kid, I'm not a mean person." Michael says.

"Yah he's just a big teddybear, no need to be afraid if him." Calum says rubbing Michael's hair.

"Stop that. I not afraid to smack you, then we'll see who's the teddybear." Michael responds pushing Calum away from him.

"Do we have to keep playing this game?" Luke asks wiping away the last of his tears.

"No, this game doesn't seem to fun anymore." Ashton says.

"Yah, I think now is a good place to stop." Calum says.

"Agreed, there's no point in trying to ruin our newly formed friendships." Michael says.

"Sorry you guys didn't get a turn," Luke says to Ashton and Michael.

"Naw, it's fine. I actually have to go now, my mom just texted me." Michael says.

"Yah it's fine Luke, don't sweat it. Bye Michael, have fun at home." Ashton says.

"See ya bro" Calum adds.

Luke gets up and hugs Michael. "Thank you for accepting me. Bye." He mumbles into Michael's shoulder.

Michael awkwardly wraps his arms around Luke and rubs his back saying, "it's fine bud, don't worry about it." They let go of each other and Michael says "bye guys, thanks for having me over Ashton." With that Michael turns and walks out of Ashton's room, down the stairs, and out of the house making sure to shut the door on his way out.

Luke turns to the two remaining boys saying, "He hates me" and bursting out in tears again. "He was one of the best friends I've ever had and he hates me!" He falls into a pile on the floor crying to himself.

Calum scoops Luke up into his own lap cradle him in a way. "He doesn't hate you Luke. He just had to go home. It's fine, you don't have to worry about loosing a friend because we're not leaving you." Calum says.

"None of us are, Michael included." Ashton adds going over to join the little cuddle. "If it'll make you feel better we can call Michael right now and ask him if he hates you. Don't even think that he'll say that he does, because he doesn't." Luke nods into Calum's chest saying he wants them to call Michael. Ashton takes out his phone and pulls up Michael's contact, "Do you want to call him?" He asks holding the phone out to Luke, who shakes his head no. "Ok how about I put it on speaker? Is that okay?"

Luke whispers out a small "yes" so Ashton hits the call and speaker buttons. The only sound heard is the ringing of Ashton's phone. "Hey, it'll be fine" Calum says trying to calm Luke down.

After a couple rings Michael answers, "Ashton, I literally just left your house how could you possible have a reason to call me?" He asks.

"Well I have a very upset boy named Luke here who thinks that you hate him because you rushed out of my house right after he came out to us and he needs a bit of reassurance that you still want to be his friend." Ashton says into the phone. Luke curled further into Calum's chest after hearing Ashton talk about him.

"Can I talk to him?" Michael asks.

"You're on speaker, talk away" Calum replies.

"Luke, I'm assuming you can hear me because Calum just replied to me but you have to listen to me. I don't hate you, not at all. You are one of my best friends and I could never hate you. I was actually going to say that I had to go before you came out to us but then you started talking and what kind of friend would I be if I walked out while you were talking. I don't care if you're gay it bi or whatever you will always be my friend. Until the day we die buddy, you're stuck with me." Michael explains, tears falling down his face for some reason unknown to him.

Luke was still crying but now they're happy tears. He's just so happy that he has friends who accept him for who he is and even love him so much they're willing to hold him while he cries and call up whoever made him cry to explain themselves. He's also happy that Michael doesn't hate him and Luke knows that Michael would do the same thing as Calum and Ashton if the positions were switched. "Th-th-thank yo-u-u" he manages to say through his tears.

"Luke, is that you buddy? Why are you still crying?" Michael asks.

"I-I-I ha-have amazing-ing-ing fr-fr-friends-s-s" Luke stutters in explanation.

"No offense Luke, but you're starting to sound like a pregnant woman. But you're an amazing friend too." Calum says. They all laugh at Calum's poor excuse of a joke.

"Sorry guys but I really have it go, I hope you're feeling better Luke. Bye guys." Michael says into the phone. He here's a chorus if 'bye Michael' before he hangs up.

Luke takes out his phone and looks at the time, 5:27, he has to go now or he'll be late for dinner. He sniffles and wipes his eyes before saying, "Guys, I actually have to go home now."

Calum checks the time before adding "Yah, I should probably go too." They all stand up, Calum and Ashton hug Luke again.

"Thanks for coming over guys. I hope you feel better Luke." Ashton says to the boys about to leave his house.

"Thanks for having me over and for being an amazing friend. Bye Calum, thank you for being an amazing friend as well." Luke says giving each boy one more hug before walking out of Ashton's room and house.

Ashton turns to Calum, "Bye buddy, see ya tomorrow."

"Bye, don't forget to do the math homework," Calum replies, before leaving Ashton to himself.


	5. Chapter 5

8/30/13  
Dear Journal,  
Sorry that I haven't written in a few days I've been pretty sick. Dr. Irwin Anne started me on chemo the day that I met Luke and it's taken a lot out of me. I've seen Luke a couple of times since I first met him but I don't think that Michael's been back at all. Honestly I wouldn't know, I've been sleeping most of the time. Apparently flu season is starting early this year so I'm going to have to be careful and probably not have many visitors. I get sick really easily because my a mine system is busy trying to fight off my cancer. I always have to be really careful during flu season and cold season and whenever people are sick really. It gets kind of annoying always having to be careful of who you're around and if they're contagious or not. Living in a hospital doesn't help much either. So I've been on and off writing this journal entry for three hours now I keep having to take brakes so I can throw up. I really hate being sick, it just really sucks. Why did I have to get cancer? Why am I on chemo? Why does everything happen to me? Why does my life suck? Ok journal this is getting a little depressing for me, I'm going to take a nap, I'll be back to finish later.

Jessy puts her journal on her bedside table, not caring that she left it wide open, and rolls over to go to sleep. She falls into a dreamless sleep almost instantly. Not to long after Jessy decided to take a nap Luke shows up to visit Jessy; he wanted to bring his friends Michael, Calum, and Ashton but Anne said that it wasn't a good idea for Jessy to have so many visitors. Luke sees Jessy's journal open on the table and decides that he should leave Jessy a little note. He turns to the first blank page, not wanting to read Jessy's private thoughts, and starts to write.

Hello Jessy's journal this is her friend Luke, I don't know if she's told you about me because I don't want to invade her privacy by reading you. I've been in the hospital since yesterday, I'm in a pain flare right now, and I decided to come visit Jessy today because I wasn't feeling to bad but she's sound asleep in her bed. Jessy is an amazing girl who is so much stronger than anyone else I've ever met. I'm sure that if she went to school she'd be the most popular girl there. Well I have to go now Dr. Irwin what's to talk to me. Bye Jessie's journal. See ya later.

Luke puts the journal back where he found it and went to find Dr. Irwin. She told him that she wanted to talk to him after her meeting at two, it's now three so he should be good to find her now. Luke walked through the maze of a hospital to Dr. Irwin's office knocking on the door when he finally gets there. He here's a faint 'come in' through the door so he opens the door and walks in.

"Hello, Anne. You said that you wanted to talk to me," Luke says walking to the chair facing her desk.

"Yes, I did. I wanted to talk to you about the pain flare you're in right now."

\-----

When Jessy woke up it was already dark out. "Great, now I'm going to be up all night," she says to herself. She reaches for her journal to finish off today's entry. She reads over where she left off.

Ok journal this is getting a little depressing for me, I'm going to take a nap, I'll be back to finish later. Well it's later now, like six hours later... My nap turned in to more of a nights sleep for me so I'm probably going to be up all night now. I need to go to the little book store they have here and pick up the lost hero books, there's a new one coming out soon and I want to read the whole series before that ones out. I wonder if the book store's still open... Probably not it's already 10:40 that's late even for a hospital. Oh well, I can always get them tomorrow. I forgot to tell you that I finished the Percy Jackson series again, that's another reason why I want to start the lost hero.

Jessy finished the page she was writing on in her journal and turned to the next one. She saw what Luke wrote and just laughed, that is so something he would do.

Well journal, it looks like you've met my friend Luke. He comes here often but he's usually home with his family or at school. I have like nothing else left to say journal so I'm just going to try to sleep again. If I can't fall asleep I'll be back but I'm hoping that this is Goodnight.  
Love,  
Jessy

Jessy put her journal down and got up to turn out the light. "Why did I leave you on," she grumbled to herself. After turning out the light she ran back to her bed, she couldn't let the monsters get her after all. After making it safely back into her bed she curled up and went to sleep.

\-----

"Jessy, Jessy wake up." Dr. Anne says shaking Jessy to stir her from sleep. "Come on Jessy, you need to wake up now." She just gets a gone in response.

"Here I'll do it." Luke says moving Dr. Anne out of the way so he can get to Jessy. Instead of going for the usual 'shake sleeping person until they wake up' tactic he does something a little more direct. Luke climbs up on top of Jessy, straddles her waist, and forcefully shakes her shoulders until he's slapped in the face.

"Okay I'm up, get off of me" a still half asleep Jessy says. "What do you want?"

Luke gets off Jessy immediately after he's told to, he doesn't want to push any boundaries even though they're becoming good friends they have only met a couple of times. "Um, well I'm not sure what Dr. Anne wants but she couldn't get you to wake up so I helped." Luke says.

"You need to take some medication and then you have chemotherapy, I though I'd wake you up an hour before that needed to happen." Dr. Anne says.

"Oh, okay. I can take the meds now though right?" Jessy asks.

"Yes, you can. You'll probably want to get them over with. Here they are." She hands Jessy two cups one with pills and one with water. "I also brought you a snack because some of those need to be taken with food." She hands Jessy a packet of mini doughnuts.

After suffering through her morning pills Jessy gets to hang out with Luke until she has to get her chemotherapy for the day. "So, what do you want to do?" She asks the awkward boy siting across from her.

"I don't really care. Whatever's fine," he responds.

"Really Luke? You don't care what we do? Not at all?" After a quick check of the time on her phone Jessy continues talking, "we have 45 minuets until I have to be back in this room, we can do anything and you don't care?"

"Well actually I'm kinda going through a bit of pain right now so if we could do something that doesn't consist of to much movement that's be great." Luke says trying to play down the amount of pain that he's in but Jessy can tell that he's hurting quite a bit.

"Okay. Well do you have any suggestions of what we could here?" Jessy asks. Right now they're siting in Jessy's little living room type aria, each on one side of the couch siting crisscross facing each other.

"Um.... I don't know. We could play like twenty questions or something like that" Luke suggests.

"Yah, that works. So let's say you answer the question that you ask, do you want to go first?"

"Sure. Let's start basic, what is your favorite color? Mine's blue"

"I see, we're starting very easy. I like purple. What is..." Jessy stops to think for a second. "Oh I got it! What's your star sign? I'm a cancer, ironic right?"

"Yah that is pretty ironic, actually I'm a cancer too. I'm going to continue with my stupidly easy questions, what's your favorite animal? Mines a penguin."

"Gircamellamaphant! Long story don't ask. Basically it's a giraffe bread with a camel, a gircamel, and a llama bread with an elephant, a lamaphant, bread together to form a gircamellamaphant." Jessy explains with a huge smile in her face the entire time. "Okay, if you don't mind I'm going to steel your super easy questions idea. What's you're favorite food? I honestly can't choose, I like all food. If you make me choose a favorite ill probably die of brain overuse."

"I don't have a favorite food either but I don't take it nearly as seriously as you do. If I was forced to choose I'd probably pick ice cream. Let me just say, wow. That was a lot of explaining just to tell me your favorite animal. I would love to know the story of how that came along but you said not to ask so I won't. Okay next question, what is your... favorite movie? Mine's 'Anchorman.'" Luke says.

"Yah, I get like that about food and trust me the animal story isn't as I treating as you think it is. I've never heard of that movie but I don't really watch movies that often. My favorite is either 'Finding Nemo' or 'The Avengers.' Do you have any siblings? I have two little sisters."

"Those are two very different movies but very good choices all the same. I have two brothers. Do you have or have you ever had any pets? I have a dog named Molly and have killed multiple pet fish."

"Back home with my family I have a dog named Journey, yes she's named after the band, and I used to have a beta fish but my cousin killed it. What's your favorite slash lucky number? Mine is six."

"You have good taste in bands slash dog names," Luke comments. "My lucky number is seven so I'm one better than you." He adds with a smirk.

"Gross! Odd numbers! Why would you like an odd number?" Jessy interrupts him before he can ask his next question. Before Luke can answer the door opens and Dr. Anne walks in.

"Hello Luke, Jessy." She says to the two teenagers. "Luke I need to talk to you from a minute and then I'll be right back oft you Jessy." Luke walks out of the room with Dr. Anne leaving Jessy to herself.

Jessy decides that she should work on some poetry because she's had some inspiration recently. So she walks over to her bedside table and opens up the drawer to get out her writing note book. Once she has the notebook she curls up in her bed and starts to write.

If I tell you that I like people then I'm lying  
I don't like people  
I don't like people at all  
People are rude   
People are selfish   
People are arrogant  
People are mean  
People are bullies   
People are annoying   
People are corrupt  
People are murders  
People are thieves   
People are full of themselves   
People are horrible   
People are uniform   
People suck  
But I like you, and that's not a lie.  
Why wouldn't I like you? What's there not to like?  
You are beautiful   
You are unique   
You are original   
You are strong  
You are smart  
You are selfless   
You are kind  
You are powerful   
You are friendly   
You are intelligent   
You are outstanding  
You are brave   
You may be broken  
You may be suffering   
You may be hurt  
You may have a rough past  
You may have a tough future   
You may have a sucky present   
You may feel alone   
You may feel worthless   
You may feel like giving up  
But  
You are worth it   
You deserve the world   
You will be saved   
You need to have hope   
Because  
I believe in you  
I know you will make it out if this  
I have faith in you  
I know that you matter   
I will always help  
I will always love you  
So  
You don't have to feel alone  
You don't have to feel worthless   
You don't have to feel like giving up  
You can forget your past   
You can stop worrying about the future  
You can live for the present that will get better, I promise   
Because   
I will try to fix you  
I will try to take away your suffering   
I will try to heal your pain  
Forget about the knife   
Forget about the lighter   
Forget about the blade   
Forget about the urge   
The urge to cut  
The urge to throw up  
The urge to skip a meal  
The urge to harm yourself in any way  
Because   
I  
Am   
Here   
For   
You

Jessy doesn't know who the "you" is that she's writing about, she figures it probably is just the general you. Jessy has dealt with depression in the past due to having cancer and losing her not just best but only friend. Jessy knows what it's like to have no will left to live and she didn't like it, it was especially bad for her health, so she wants to help other kids and teens with terminal illnesses get out of that bad place. Many kids and teens living in hospitals due to terminal illnesses develop some form of depression because they're already going through a tough stage in their life add on being sick and that can crush someone.

Some time while Jessy's writing Dr. Anne opens the door to retrieve her but doesn't have the heart to disturb her when she sees how Jessy's lost in her writing. Dr. Anne decides that she can wait a few moments for Jessy to be finished so she quietly closes the door and creeps over to the couch, not wanting to disturb the girl so lost in thought.

When Jessy finally looks up from writing her poem she notices Dr. Anne sitting on Jessy's couch waiting for her. "How long have you been waiting?" Jessy asks.

"Not long, only a few minuets actually." Dr. Anne answers checking the time on her watch. "I finished talking with Luke sooner than I planned so I was early. I thought that I'd just wait until you were finished with your writing."

"Well that's very kind of you, thank you." Jessy replies while putting her writing notebook back in the drawer on her bed side table. Closing the drawer she hoped off her bed and met Dr. Anne over by her door. "All right let's get this over with."


	6. Chapter 6

_8/30/13_   
_Dear Notebook,_   
_Hey! How are you today? I'm good, thanks for asking! I'm writing to you in the morning, this is kinda weird. Usually I go to bed when I finish writing in you but today I have to get up and do stuff. Sorry I haven't written in a few days, school has been crazy! Luke has been staying at the hospital for the last couple days, I think he's probably going to be there a while longer. He seemed like he was in a lot of pain last time I went to visit him, that poor kid. I hope he feels better soon, no one deserves to be in that much pain for to long. But on a happier note Michael hasn't hurt himself in some way since the time where we met Luke. That kid needs to learn how to walk without falling. Calum and I decided to go shopping yesterday after school, yah I know shopping is girly but I needed more pants and he wanted some new t-shirts so we went shopping. It took a lot longer than either if us wanted it to because Calum couldn't find the shirt he wanted and when he found it they didn't have his size so he decided to wine and complain the entire time I was trying to find some pants. Yes I know we sound like girls, leave me alone! So notebook, guess what I found out the other day! Luke can sing! Really well actually, he also plays the guitar but I already knew that one. So yah now that we've found a lead singer me Calum and Michael can finally start our band! We're going to be called Five Seconds of Summer. I'll play the drums, Calum will play bass (rhythm section!) and sing, Michael will play guitar and sing, and Luke will play guitar and sing. We all already know the instruments so tomorrow were going to film out first cover of the only song all four of us know, Teenage Dirtbag. One day were going to be famous and you can say you knew me when. Well that's all I have to update you on as of now notebook hopefully I'll be back tomorrow._   
_Byeeeeeeeee,_   
_Ashton._

__

Ashton puts his notebook down on his bedside table and stands up to get dressed. He has to get dressed quickly because he's going to be late for school again. He rushes to his bathroom across the hall to brush his teeth and fix his hair. After trying, and failing, to make his hair do what he wants it to for five minutes he gives up and runs downstairs. He waisted to much time on his hair so he has to skip breakfast, hurriedly throwing his things into his backpack he zips it and runs out the door. I really need to get my license he thinks to himself. He sprints, awkwardly due to the heavy backpack on his back, to the school building located only a few blocks away from his house. If I was smart I would have at least taken my skateboard he thinks as he's walking into school, breathless. He's forced to walk to his first hour class room so he's not stopped for running in the halls by a teacher and made even more late.

Ashton walks into his first class a total of seven minutes late. "It's nice of you to finally join us Mr. Irwin." The teacher, Mrs. Cutchaw says in her annoyingly shrill voice.

"I'm sorry ma'am, it won't happen again." Ashton replies with his head hung regretfully.

"You've said that the last three times you've been tardy. I'm sorry Ashton I'm going to have to give you a detention. Please come to my classroom after school is finished." 

There is a chorus of "Ooh's" in the background as Ashton nods his head in reply. He walks with his head hung in shame to the only available seat in the room, the broken one in the back. He sits through the class only half listening, to busy trying to figure out how he's going to tell his mom that he got another detention to pay much attention at all.

The bell finally rang signifying the end of first hour, Ashton rushes out to avoid being stopped by Mrs. Cutchaw. He's about to go in search of Calum and Michael to tell them that he's no longer available to practice after school today, They were going to visit Luke in the hospital later so they could work out who'd sing what part for their recording tomorrow, when he's greeted by the unusual sight of both boys standing by his locker waiting for him. 

"This is weird. Michael don't you like, have something you're supposed to be doing right now? You're never usually here." Ashton asks while opening his locker to out hid backpack away and take out the things he needs for his next class.

"Well usually I have to walk to north for my class next hour but today were meeting in the library here at south." Michael explains. Their school is a bit strange in the way that it was built in two campuses, North and South. Technically they're two different schools but most students have classes at both. Ashton and Luke are two of the lucky few who don't have to walk between campuses at all.

"Oh yah, well it's nice to have you here with us this fine morning." Ashton says sarcasm evident in his voice. Calum was to busy texting to pay attention so Ashton clapped his hands in front of Calum's face before starting to talk. "I can't come with you guys to the hospital tonight," Ashton says to both boys. "I got another detention."

"Really Ashton? You got another detention? We're you late to school again?" Calum asks voice filled with disbelief.

"Yah I was," Ashton replies hanging his head, "sorry to let you guys down. On the bright side I don't sing so you can still figure out who's singing what verse of the song." 

Michael can tell that Ashton is really sorry for letting Calum and himself down, Ashton's the type of person who doesn't like to disappoint anyone, ever. Michael can sense that Ashton could really use a hug so Michael opens up his arms and Ashton immediately accepts the hug, falling into Michael's embrace. "Hey, it's fine," He says rubbing Ashton's back. "Don't worry about us, we know that you're relationship with your dad isn't the best and that you're often late because never wakes you up on time." By this point Ashton had started crying and Calum joined the hug turning it into a group hug. "Don't worry about us," Michael reiterates, "we can practice whenever, you should focus on getting to the rest of your classes on time so you don't get suspended." Michael finishes his voice filled with sincerity.

"Everything Mikey just said is one hundred percent true. You need to focus on your self, weather that's getting to class on time or passing them, focus on school not us." Calum adds.

"I'm such a girl. You guys are amazing friends, thank you" Ashton says between sniffles as he pulls out of the group hug to check the time. "Guys we only have two minuets to get to class."

"Well then we all need to leave right now, bye Ashton bye Calum." Michael says starting to walk away.

Both Calum and Ashton yell "bye" back to him as they turn to walk the other direction down the hall where their classes are located. They speed walk together for a bit until they reach Calum's classroom. 

"Bye Cal see ya at lunch" Ashton says as he continues to speed walk down the hall.

"Bye, I'll save you a seat" Calum shouts back to him before walking into the classroom. 

All three boys make it to class on time, some with only seconds to spare. They suffer through their two remaining classes before lunch where they all meet at their usual table to eat.

They eat in silence for a few minuets before Michael brakes the silence with a question. "Did you guys make it to class on time?" 

The question is directed to both Calum and Ashton but Calum can tell it was really meant for Ashton more than himself. If it was anyone else he'd be offended but Michael has kind of taken on the fatherly role in Ashton's life since his actual father hasn't been doing a very good job of it. Michael is just one of those people who likes to protect the ones around him and with him knowing Ashton for so long, since they were little, it was very easy for him act like a father to Ashton, more so than the younger boy had realized. Calum knows that Ashton is very self conscious and doesn't like to be 'babied' as the boy himself had put it. So he knows if he doesn't answer the question or points out how it wasn't really meant for him, Ashton will be upset for the rest of the day, so he offers up his answer first. "I did. Made it into my desk with a whole thirty seconds to spare" Calum says.

"I walked through the door right as the bell rang and Mr. Daily, being the awesome teacher that he is, said that it counts as being there on time." Ashton adds.

"I've heard a lot about Mr. Daily but I've never been in one of his classes" Michael says. "Okay so Ashton you've got the drum part for 'Teenage Dirtbag' down right?"

"Yah I was practicing on my drum box last night. I've got it memorized." He responds.

"Good boy" Calum says jokingly patting Ashton in the head like a dog. He tries to turn Michael's protectiveness into a joke whenever possible to help Ashton out a bit.

The three boys continue to joke around and talk for the remainder of lunch. When the bell rings signaling the end of lunch they all get up and walk to music history with Mr. Cos. After that one hour of fun they each have to suffer through two more boring classes before the final bell rings and they're allowed to go home. Well Michael and Calum are allowed to go home, Ashton has dentition. 

Their boring classes pass relatively quickly compared to their morning classes and when the bell finally rings all three boys rush out of their classes and to the lockers, meeting at Ashton's when there done. 

Ashton's standing at his locker packing his backpack up when Calum and Michael show up having already gone to their lockers and gotten their things.

"Hey, text knew of us when you're out of detention and we'll tell you if were still at the hospital so you can come join us." Calum says to Ashton as he closes his locker.

"Okay, will do. I've actually got to get going now or Mrs. Cutchaw will have my head for being late to the detention I got for being late." Ashton replies.

"Well we wouldn't want that. Bye Ashton, don't forget to text us." Michael reiterates while Calum throws in a "bye" as well. 

Ashton walks back to the classroom of his first hour teacher, Mrs. Cutchaw. When he walks in she is yet to arrive from the teachers lounge so he sits in one of the desks in the first row. He gets out a notebook and starts to doodle while he waits. He's never been a big fan of art but he figures that a little doodling never hurt anyone.

Mrs. Cutchaw arrives about five minuets after Ashton had and she looks surprised to see him there already. Ashton is a bit shocked that there's no other students here, Mrs. Cutchaw is known for having the most kids in detention and Saturday schools out of every teacher. Mrs. Cutchaw sets the papers she was carrying down on her desk and turns so that she's facing Ashton before starting to talk.

"Ashton, I know you're a good kid and student so why are you here?" She asks.

"Because you gave me a detention," he replies innocently, not trying to be rude.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," the elderly teacher replies, not even fazed by his response. 

"I'm here because I can never wake up on time, I don't own an alarm clock, and my dad never wakes me up when I ask him to." Ashton replies feeling like he's being interrogated.

"Well why don't you just go to the store and buy an alarm clock? That would solve all of our problems."

"Because I can't drive and my dad won't take me. Also I don't have enough money for an alarm clock."

"Ashton, do you feel like your father I'd abusive to you?" Mrs. Cutchaw asks face turning from sower to sincere.

"What? No that's absurd!" He replies, shocked by the words coming out of the teachers mouth.

"You can tell me if he is Ashton. I can get you help, get you out of that place." She continues.

"No, my father does not abuse me." He says putting emphasis on each word. "Sure he's not the best dad but he's never hit me or my mom."

"You know that abuse is more than just physical right? There's mental and verbal abuse, he doesn't have to physically touch you for it to be considered abuse."

"He doesn't abuse me, he just doesn't like to spend time or money on unnecessary things. I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself." Ashton replies getting frustrated. Mrs. Cutchaw is about to speak again but Ashton cuts her off. "My dad is not abusive in any way shape or form. Now can you please drop it and let me sit here in detention silently like I'm supposed to, please?" Ashton asks desperate by now. He really doesn't like talking about his personal life with people he doesn't really know, teachers included.

"Okay, okay. I'll drop it for now but know that if you're late to my class one more time you'll not only get suspended but you'll have to talk to the school consular about your home life." Mrs. Cutchaw says giving into the teenager. "Now get out of here, I've put you through enough for one day," she says in a fond manner. 

As soon as Ashton got out of the school he pulls out his phone to text Michael.

**To: Michael 3:07**  
Hey, I got let out early, have you guys left you? -Ashton

He receives a reply from Michael almost instantly. Opening the text while sitting down on the front steps of the school building.

**From: Michael 3:07**  
We were just packing up my car. Where would you like me to pick you up? -Michael

**To: Michael 3:08**  
The school's fine, will I need my drum box? -Ashton

**From: Michael 3:09**  
Only if you want to go get it, we completely understand if your rather leave without stoping at your house -Michael

**To: Michael 3:09**  
Can you guys pick it up for me on your way here? It's just up in my bedroom by my bed. -Ashton

**From: Michael 3:10**  
Sure bud, well be there in ten -Michael

**To: Michael 3:12**  
Thanx :) -Ashton

After sending the last text Ashton closes his Phone and gets out his iPod so he can listen to music while he waits. About four songs later Ashton sees lyles car pull up in front of him. He gets up and goes to get into the back seat of the car, seeing his drum box belted in next to him.

"Hey guys, thanks for picking me up before you left," Ashton says with a smile on his face.

"It's no problem Ashton, you know we'll always come and get you whenever you need us," Calum says turning back to look Ashton in the eyes as he talks to him.

What were you guys doing before you left?" Ashton asks effectively changing the topic.

"We got distracted by Michael's Nintendo, we found it while we were looking for his spare guitar for Luke to play." Calum explains.

"Really guys? I bet it had Pokémon in it too didn't it." Ashton replies exasperated with his friends predictable behavior. 

"Yes it did you should know by now that were easily distracted and like Pokemon," Michael replies. "Now please shut up I'm driving."

The two other boys immediately stop talking and Calum turns around in his seat so he's facing front like he should be. They really didn't want to get in a crash while they were driving to the hospital.

The three boys arrived at the hospital a short fifteen minuets later. Michael immediately finds a parking spot, turning off the car and popping the trunk so they can get the guitars out of it. Once they have all their stuff piled in their arms they stumble into the hospital laughing as they walk. When they get inside they ask the lady at the front desk where they could find Luke.

"Luke Hemmings... He is in room 324 on the third floor. Just take the elevator right down the hall and his room should be pretty easy to find, just follow the signs in the walls." She replies kindly.

"Thank you" all three boys reply strangely in unison. They walk down the hall to the elevator setting down the guitars and drum box once they're in. 

"Okay, floor three" Ashton mumbles to himself while pressing the button. 

A few moments the elevator reaches the third floor, dinging as it stops. The doors open and they pick up their things and walk down the halls following the signs leading them to room 324. They find the room and see a sign next to the door saying "Luke Hemmings and Matt Tummel" so they know that they're in the right place. Ashton knocks in the door waiting for an answer. Someone who they're assuming is Matt opens the door just a few seconds later. 

"Hello, I'm Ashton. I'm assuming that you're Matt? We're friends if Luke, is he here?" Ashton asks since he was the one who knocked.

"He's actually not here right now but I'm just going to assume that he's expecting you so come in, set your stuff down, invade his bed. It's the one on the left." Matt replies. "Oh and yes I am Matt." 

"Do you know when he'll get back?" Michael asks after he sets his guitar down next to Luke's bed. 

"Actually no I don't but you guys could always go looking for him if you really want to. He likes to hang out in the sixth floor cancer ward. I think he's got himself a girlfriend up there" Matt says causing the three boys in his room to burst out in laughter.

The boys continue laughing ignoring Matts cries of "what?" Ashton is the first one to calm down deciding to put Matt out of his misery, "it's nothing really, thanks for your help."

"Do you need help finding the cancer ward?" Matt asks politely.

"No we should be good, my mom works there after all." Ashton says grabbing the arms of his stupid friends who were still laughing and dragging them out of the room.

Michael and Calum managed to calm themselves down by the time the three if them finally get to the elevator. "Okay, now that you're listening, we're going to the sixth floor cancer ward to visit my mom." Ashton says.

"We don't have time to visit your mom! We need to find Luke so that we can practice before this one has to be home." Michael replies pointing at Calum. 

"We're going to see his mom to find Luke dumb ass, pay attention once in a while" Calum replies, smacking the back of Michael's head earning an "ouch and who are you calling a dumb ass, dumb ass." In return.

"Guys, guys! Don't fight! No ones a dumb ass!" Ashton says as the elevator dings six times telling them that they've arrived at the sixth floor.

"Okay, now we just need to find the cancer ward and your mom." Calum says stepping out of the elevator.

The three boys literally run into a nurse almost immediately. After the awkward apologies on both ends Ashton asks her where they can find Dr. Irwin.

"Dr. Irwin is a very busy woman and doesn't have time to talk to random teenage visitors who don't even watch where they're walking. Please schedule an appointment if you'd like to speak with her." The nurse says rather rudely.

"Yah, thanks for that but I'm her son. I'm sure she has enough time to talk to me and my friends for a few minuets seeing as she would usually call me around this time anyway." Ashton replies with a smirk forming on his face.

The nurses eyes fill with shock before an apologetic smile falls on to her lips. "I'm so sorry. Please excuse my mistake I didn't realize. I'll take you to her right away." She's says.

"Thank you" Ashton replies shortly. He's a bit offended from what the nurse had earlier said even though he completely embarrassed her.

The boys follow her though the maze maze like hallways until their met with Ashton's mom's office door. "You boys can go right in" the nurse says before briskly walking away.

"Well she was rude" Michael says while reaching for the doorknob. When they walk in Ashton's mom is on the phone so they just silently sit on the couch and wait for her to be finished. When Dr. Irwin finishes talking on the phone she hangs up with a short "goodbye" before putting it down and turning to the three boys now filling up the couch in her office.

"Hello boys, and what do I owe the pleasure if having all three of you in my office on this fine day?" She asks.

"We're looking for our friend Luke and we were told that he likes to hang out here so we thought who better to ask where he may be than you." Calum explains. 

"Ah, Luke Hemmings I'm assuming," she continues when she seed the boys nod, "he's a knife boy, deserves friends like you three." She says with a fond smile. "He's always hanging out with this girl Jessy, I'm pretty sure he has a bit of a crush in her, well you'll probably find them in her room. Room 675 just down the hall and to the left" she finishes. "Now if you'll be on your way I have some very important work to attend to."

With that all three boys stand up and mumble some type of "thanks" before walking out and hurrying along the halls in search if this mysterious Jessy's room.

It didn't take them long at all to find Jessy's room and judging by the sign next to her door she has her own room. Michael knocks on her door waiting for it to be opened when he hears someone shout "come in" from the other side. After hearing the invitation he opens the door and all three of them pile into the rather surprisingly large room. They see Luke and a girl who must be Jessy sitting in a couch on the far side of the room facing each other.

"Michael! It's nice to see you again!" Jessy says getting up off the couch I go attack Michael with a hug.

"Jessy! It's good to see you too and to not be injured this time." Michael replies instantly hugging Jessy back. They may not have talked for more than an hour but they talked about some deep stuff and became really good friends in that short time. "We need to swap numbers so we can still talk even when I'm not at the hospital," Michael says to Jessy before releasing her from the hug and turning to Luke. "Dude, why didn't you tell me that you know Jessy?" He asks disappointed in his friend.

Before Luke can reply Ashton speaks up, "Does anyone else feel left out right now? It can't just be me, Calum?"

"Actually, yes Ashton I do feel left out." Calum replies. "Maybe someone should explain to us what exactly is going on right now."

"I think that's an amazing idea," Ashton says Turing to face his friends. "Michael, Luke, care to tell us, your friends, what's going on" he finished putting emphasis on the word friends.

"I met Jessy the same day that I met Luke, we tallied for a while and became pretty good friends but I had to go before we could discuss how we could keep in touch." Michael explains.

"I didn't know any of you except for Michael and Luke until right now." Jessy says feeling like she should add her own input to the conversation. "Actually I still don't know you two but since you were calling each other Ashton and Calum I'm assuming those are you're names. I'm also going to assume that you're the same Ashton and Calum I heard about from both Michael and Luke."

Every one in the room turns to Luke waiting to hear his side of the story. When he finally speaks none of his friends are surprised by the words coming out of his mouth or how he changes the topic so easily. "Jessy this is Calum and Ashton, Calum and Ashton this is Jessy" he points at each person as he says their name. "There we go, now everything's settled you all know each other. Now that that's out of the way, why are you guys here?"

"Band practice, did you really forget?" Michael asks.

"Oh, yah I guess I did." Luke says looking like he's searching his brain for the event. "I'm sorry Jessy I've got to go. I joined these weirdos band a few days ago and apparently we have band practice today. I'll talk to you tomorrow, bye." He says while getting up and starting to follow the rest of the boys out. 

"Bye Luke, see ya tomorrow." Jessy replies. All of the boys say some sort of goodbye to Jessy as they're walking out and they each get one in return. The boys work their way back through the halls and to the elevator with Luke leading the way.

When the elevator door closes Ashton is the first to talk, "Dude you didn't think to mention that you had a gorgeous female friend who's our age that your hiding here?" He says to Luke.

"Well I guess I didn't realize that you'd find her attractive, you know gay and all." Luke replies.

"That excuse is not going to work for much longer my friend, I'm just being nice because we kind of forced you out of the closet. But I do think that I'm going to be spending a lot more of my free time at the hospital." Ashton says.

"Please don't hurt her Ashton, she's really fragile and she's been through a lot and she's one of my only friends. I wish I could say that I know you wouldn't hurt her but the truth is we've only been friends for a few weeks I don't know enough about you yet to know that. Just please, I don't want to see her hurt." Luke says cutting himself off when he realizes that he's rambling.

"Luke we get it, she's important to you. And you don't have to worry, both me and Calum know Ashton well enough to say that he won't hurt her, he's a good guy. There's really no need to ramble." Michael replies and Calum nods in agreement while Ashton blushes in the corner.

They get out of the elevator when it reaches the third floor, having to hear Ashton go on and on and on about a girl he's only seen once in his life. They walk back to Luke's room to practice. They got a good two hours of practice in before their stomachs started to growl at six.

"Is the food here good enough to actually eat or should I quickly head out and get us all some Mickey D's?" Michael asks, his question directed towards Luke.

"I'd say the food here is pretty good actually. I think it's better than that shit the school tries to call food." Luke replies.

"Sweet lets go get some then!" Calum says standing up from the small circle they made on the floor. The other three boys quickly follow and they all run to the elevator so they can go down to the main floor and get some food. They take their time eating, joking and talking all the while. They have plenty of time before Calum has to be home at eight so why not have a little fun during their dinner break? 

They don't get much done after their dinner break because they just can't find it in themselves to refocus on practicing. Instead they decide to sit down and learn a bit more about each other because they honestly don't know all that much about Luke and he doesn't know much about them. They end up talking for their remaining hour and a half instead of practicing like they should have been but it's probably good that they all got to know each other a bit better. For a while they even got Luke to talk about his crush, he's really got the hots for someone, now they just have to figure out who.

At seven forty Luke, Michael, Calum, and Ashton start to pack up so that the later three can get Calum home on time. It takes them all of two minuets to pack up with Luke helping so they have a few minuets to say their goodbyes. They decided to just leave all their instruments in Luke's room because they were coming back the next morning to record their cover of Teenage Dirtbag anyway. After the not so tearful goodbyes to Luke, which were more like "see ya tomorrow", and the very tearful goodbyes with their instruments were said Ashton, Calum, and Michael grab their things and walk out if the hospital to Michael's car.

After dropping Calum off Michael drives to Ashton's house so he can drop him off too. "Hey buddy. I'm going to call you tomorrow at ten to make sure your up. I'll be here at ten thirty to pick you up." Michael says patting Ashton on the shoulder.

"Ok thank you. That should be plenty of time to get ready if I'm not already up." Ashton replies. Both boys know that he won't be awake when Michael calls, even if Ashton asks his dad to wake him up in the morning. There's a bit of tension as Ashton gets out of the car, he knows what Kylie's doing and he's trying not to let it get to him even though he knows that is eventually will. 

As Ashton's walking up to his house he remembers about the detention that he got earlier that day and he's instantly struck with fear for he now has to face his sure to be angry father. Ashton hears Michael's care back out of his driveway and drive off. 'Well there's no turning back now' he thinks to himself. Ashton walks up to his front door and slowly turns the knob thinking 'Maybe if I'm quiet enough I can sneak into my room without him knowing.' When he opens the door he's surprised to see that all of the lights inside are shut off, usually his dad would have at least some of them on even if he was sleeping. Ashton walks further into his house continuing to be quiet just incase his dads actually home. When he walks into the kitchen and turns the light on he's expecting to see his dad sitting at the table waiting for Ashton to come home so he can yell at him but instead he's met with an empty kitchen. After a bit more inspection Ashton notices a note on the fridge. 

"Ashton, I've gone out. You better be home with a good explanation for this detention you received when I get back, we need to talk young man." 

Ashton could easily tell that his father had written the note, not only by what it said but also by the handwriting. He suddenly felt all of his fear come rushing back along with the words he heard from his teacher, Mrs. Cutchaw, earlier that day. He quickly brushed it off and grabbed his backpack to start on his homework. 'Might as well not give him another reason to be mad at me' he thinks.

After finishing all of his homework Ashton looks over at the clock to check the time. "Wow, ten thirty already." He says to himself. "Mom's going to be home soon, I should probably shower and go to bed." And so he does.

Ashton hears his mom come home while he's in the shower so he quickly finishes cleaning himself and shuts the water off. He dries himself off and throws on the pajamas he brought into the bathroom with him. He walks out of the bathroom and to his room across the hall yelling goodnight to his mother as he goes. Once he's in his room he turns out the light and runs over to hid bed jumping so the monsters can't get him. He falls asleep as soon as his head hits his pillow and if his dad comes home completely wasted at some god forsaken time of the morning, well he'd never know because he was sound asleep dreaming of a beautiful girl with no hair and shining blue eyes.


End file.
